LumenUs helps automate tedious paperwork in times of grief

When Sara Tashakorinia’s husband died in a car accident eight years ago, the last thing she needed was the roughly 570 hours of paperwork it takes, on average, to settle a loved one’s affairs. But for millions of people each year, this is their reality: a crushing loss, followed by a soullessly mundane avalanche of tedious administrative work.

八年前，当萨拉·塔沙科里尼亚（Sara Tashakorinia）的丈夫在车祸中去世时，她最不需要面对的就是处理亲人身后事平均所需的约 570 小时文书工作。但对于每年数以百万计的人来说，这就是他们的现实：在承受沉重打击之后，还要面对如雪片般飞来、枯燥乏味且毫无温情的行政琐事。

“The day your loved one passes away, you also get this honorary badge of a project manager for a project you had no idea about, trying to navigate something and learn something when you literally have zero information,” Tashakorinia told TechCrunch. After years of volunteering to help others navigate what she had to learn on her own, it occurred to Tashakorinia that AI might be able to help — not with the complex, messy experience of grieving and healing, but with the least human parts of the process, like finding the right tax forms, filing insurance claims, and shutting down bank accounts.

“在你亲人去世的那一天，你也获得了一个‘项目经理’的荣誉头衔，负责一个你完全不了解的项目。你必须在毫无信息的情况下，试图去摸索和学习如何处理这一切，”塔沙科里尼亚告诉 TechCrunch。在多年志愿帮助他人处理她曾经独自面对的难题后，塔沙科里尼亚意识到人工智能或许能提供帮助——不是为了解决悲伤和治愈过程中复杂而混乱的情感体验，而是为了处理流程中最机械的部分，比如寻找正确的税务表格、提交保险索赔以及注销银行账户。

The result is LumenUs, the grief care platform that Tashakorinia founded last year to relieve grieving families of some of the administrative burden. “I think going through it, your threshold of pain is so high, and you’re so lost that you don’t really realize, why do people treat you this way? Why was I left with a stack of paperwork, and why was the funeral home charging me a 300% markup on a casket?” Tashakorinia said.

其成果就是 LumenUs，这是塔沙科里尼亚去年创立的悲伤护理平台，旨在减轻悲伤家庭的部分行政负担。“我认为在经历这些时，你的痛苦阈值会变得非常高，而且你会感到如此迷茫，以至于你根本没意识到：为什么人们要这样对待你？为什么我会被留下一堆文书工作，为什么殡仪馆要向我收取 300% 的棺材溢价？”塔沙科里尼亚说道。

While Tashakorinia hopes LumenUs will eventually support people throughout the lifelong grieving process, the startup will initially focus on people in the immediate aftermath of a death. When people initially join the platform, they go through an onboarding process in which they share information about the nature of their particular situation. “We are asking very specific questions to understand the legal and financial means, and their state of mind, and this is only to personalize who they are, and then personalizing what happened,” Tashakorinia said.

虽然塔沙科里尼亚希望 LumenUs 最终能支持人们度过终身的悲伤过程，但这家初创公司最初将专注于亲人去世后的即时阶段。当人们首次加入该平台时，他们会经历一个入驻流程，分享有关其特定情况的信息。“我们会提出非常具体的问题，以了解他们的法律和财务状况以及心理状态，这只是为了实现用户身份的个性化，进而针对所发生的事情进行个性化处理，”塔沙科里尼亚说。

From there, the platform organizes tasks by urgency, helping users decipher what needs to be done immediately and what can wait. In some cases, this can even help people discover that they’re entitled to money that can help ease the financial burden of death. In fact, billions of dollars in life insurance benefits go unclaimed because people don’t know they’re available. “We are using AI to automate as much as we can to save time during this process, and give it back to [users],” she said.

此后，平台会根据紧急程度整理任务，帮助用户分辨哪些事情需要立即处理，哪些可以稍后再办。在某些情况下，这甚至能帮助人们发现他们有权获得资金，从而减轻死亡带来的经济负担。事实上，数十亿美元的人寿保险金因人们不知道其存在而无人认领。“我们正在利用人工智能尽可能多地实现自动化，以节省这一过程中的时间，并将其归还给[用户]，”她说。

Tashakorinia has a background in cybersecurity, which is sure to prove essential for building a product that asks people to share so much sensitive personal and financial information. She is building LumenUs alongside co-founders Sajad Mirzaei, a former engineer at Google and Box, and Larry Keeley, an innovation scientist, professor, and entrepreneur. The team is also consulting with clinicians and social workers while testing the product.

塔沙科里尼亚拥有网络安全背景，这对于构建一个要求用户分享大量敏感个人和财务信息的产品来说，无疑是至关重要的。她与联合创始人萨贾德·米尔扎伊（Sajad Mirzaei，前谷歌和 Box 工程师）以及拉里·基利（Larry Keeley，创新科学家、教授兼企业家）共同打造了 LumenUs。该团队在测试产品的同时，也在咨询临床医生和社会工作者的意见。

LumenUs, a participant in this year’s Startup Battlefield 200 — the annual showcase of promising early-stage startups at TechCrunch Disrupt, taking place October 13-15 in San Francisco — will launch in early access in October.

LumenUs 是今年“创业战场 200 强”（Startup Battlefield 200）的参与者——这是 TechCrunch Disrupt 大会上展示有前途的早期初创公司的年度盛会，将于 10 月 13 日至 15 日在旧金山举行——该平台将于 10 月开启抢先体验。